Living in Potter's Field
by Panache
Summary: MMPRZeo: Darker grown up Rocky vignette with a bar and a beautiful woman. Ch. 2:: Trini's Turn
1. Rocky

Disclaimer: Someone else's sandbox. I just play here because its fun.

Author's Note: So apparently Tuesday is my pushing my limits day. After going back to my BtVS, AtS roots over the weekend, I wanted to try my hand at something a little darker and edgier than my usual writing.

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There are days when he thinks it would be better if he had died. A bright explosion, a glorious end, people standing over his grave sharing their memories while they still remembered him.

He's pretty sure now that if he set down his scotch, got off his stool and walked out into the traffic he's been contemplating for the last hour, no words of admiration would be said over his grave and the funeral would be mercifully short thanks to the lack of anyone to give a eulogy . . .

Assuming, of course, he ever got claimed from the morgue.

In a way, however, he's already entered the potter's field, anonymous lives left to be forgotten, never to be found again if by some chance they were remembered. It was just his luck nobody had thought to check for a pulse.

If he walked out into the traffic, he could remedy that oversight.

But the scotch here wasn't half-bad, and he's not really sure he could actually _make_ it all the way from his stool to the great outdoors. 'Sides he kinda hates Pete, and it'd be a damn shame to give this dive street cred by splattering all his good blood on that street.

There are other ways to take care of business. His mind drifting back to that little bottle of pain pills that still sits in his medicine cabinet after seven years and four moves, Rocky DeSantos lifted his glass in the universal gesture for 'fill me up, barkeep.'

She enters in a rush, a harsh burst of pent up energy that's at odds with the bar's lethargic atmosphere, and he bristles at the interruption of his descent into self-pity, well . . . he _would _bristle, if that didn't require so damn much effort. Instead he settles for lifting the glass to his lips and glaring at her from his spot in the shadows as she stands in the only stripe of daylight that manages to creep into this place and orders, with a slam of her credit card on the bar, shots of tequila, line-em-up-and-keep-em-coming.

Pete frowns at her card there on the bar in all its glaring testament of progress and commerce. This is a neighborhood dive—people pay cash that can't be traced and never up front, Pete keeps a tab and if you're too drunk to fumble the bills out tonight, that's okay, you'll be back tomorrow because the type of people who drink here are always back tomorrow—that damn, shiny piece of plastic is an insult to his establishment.

But its still money, so he slides it off the bar and runs it through the machine (he keeps it just in case), and then reaches for the cheapest shit he stocks, pouring her three generous shots.

She drinks like Rocky would bet she does everything else, intense and focused. Shots, not beer, not wine, not mixed drinks, nothing you sip just knock back, ignoring the journey, intent on the destination. And knock 'em back she does. One. Two. Three. Glass hitting wood. Let's try that again with the best stuff you've got.

She's stood all this time her body silhouetted in the sun, so that he could be admiring the curves of a woman old enough to be his mother. But if that's the case, well not like it hasn't happened before in far more intimate surroundings, and they are incredibly worthy curves—lithe like a dancer's but with a subtle roundness that bespeaks something more sensual, not overtly sexy, but the promise of something, like if you could get close enough, if you could manage to peel through the layers, the experience would be beyond your capacity for imagination.

Now she sits, as though aware that she'd had to prove she belonged and with that little display she's done it. Or maybe she just had to be sufficiently on her way to insobriety to deign to actually touch anything in this place. She doesn't belong. It's obvious as she slides onto one of the stools, crossing model-length legs encased in designer jeans that would be two-weeks pay for him at least. But she does it with a damn sight more grace than a woman who's just downed three-shots, wearing four-inch red stilettos he doesn't even want to know the price of, should be able to, so yeah . . . she gets a spot, and she gets the good tequila.

And he's intrigued now, and it's been a frighteningly long while since he's been intrigued by anyone, so against his better judgment and the protests of his stomach, he lifts his glass to Pete again.

She tracks Pete with her eyes, turning her head ever so slightly to watch with unveiled interest as Rocky's glass is filled yet again, and now he can see he won't have to conduct another self-therapy session regarding his Oedipal complex. At most she's barely on the wrong-side of forty and then only if the same money that bought those shoes can buy the best damn plastic surgeons in country, and if so, why shouldn't he enjoy the masterpiece of a fine artist.

But he'd bet she's closer to just the right side of thirty (whatever that side might be), perfect skin, a curtain of shoulder length black hair cut just so, shimmering like liquid obsidian, and almond-shaped eyes that as they look at him back up every promise made by her curves.

And as they regard each other with a frankness that for him comes only with inebriation, but is obviously par for the course for her, something tickles in the back of his brain, a feather light brush of recognition, and he looks at those curves a little harder, trying to picture what lies just under that tragically opaque white blouse and whether he's ever seen it in Playboy. Then she smiles, just the tiniest curve of her lips, a Cheshire smile, as though she knows exactly what's going through his head, as though she has a secret she's about to let him in on.

Motioning Pete over with one elegant finger, she scribbles something down on the back of a coaster, and points to him in a way that can only mean one thing—he's about to get picked up.

But when the new drink comes and he flips over the coaster in giddy excitement, it's not a phone-number or a room number or anything so delightful, but rather four simple words:

_Wouldn't Zordon be disappointed?_

And now his stomach is turning, reasserting its protest to those last couple of drinks, and he's stumbling his ways towards the men's restroom.

When he comes out, she's standing there, leaning against the opposite wall as though she's been waiting for him since he went in.

"Hello Rocky."

And Oh God, this is so may kinds of wrong his scotch-addled brain can't take it. Standing here in the dimly lit hallway with breath that wreaks of equal parts liquor and upchuck is not how he wants to be approached by a beautiful woman who's obviously out of his league.

But he doesn't have a choice because she's standing there smirking at him, leaving no avenue of escape, except back into the bathroom, which is not all that attractive and he's not entirely sure she won't just follow him in.

So taking the only course available to both him and his dignity, he leans against the doorframe.

"Hello Trini."

"Long time no see."

Oh, isn't that the understatement of the damned millennium. It's been over a decade, and have they ever really seen each other? Because he certainly never looked at her back then and imagined her being able to drink like that, never pictured what lay underneath those perfectly safe yellow t-shirts, or thought about what that curtain of hair would feel like tangled up in his hands, but he's thinking about all that and more right now.

Thinking about skin on skin, those glossy lips against his chapped ones, all the while perfectly aware that she's still standing there smirking at him, and he can't come up with one fucking word to say.

Suddenly, he's furious with her for coming here, for slumming in his potter's field, digging up his anonymous grave and having the gall to say 'I know you.' What right does she have with her designer everything, her perfect everything? She's obviously somebody, people know her because you can't get that far up the mountain and be anonymous. But maybe you can because as he opens his mouth to say all those things and more something in her eyes stops him, something shuttered and dead, and he thinks maybe he's wrong, maybe she's not slumming, maybe she lives here, too.

Maybe they all live here, feeling lost and unknown because there are parts of their lives that nobody will ever know, parts that chiseled them out, that melted them down and forged them anew. Or maybe it's just them; maybe they're the only ones who never really managed to connect with the living.

He doesn't really know the answer to any of these questions, which are far too involved right now anyway, but he does know that suddenly there's nothing he wants to say, nothing he needs to say. So as she pushes off the wall and begins to move towards him, prowling like the tigress she'll always be associated with for him, he just watches.

And then she's there, standing so close he can smell her, even through the stale cigarette smoke and urine, he can smell her and damn it's so good, sandalwood and citrus with something underneath, something he can't place, but he wants to, he's up to the challenge if she'll give him the chance. She doesn't touch him, just stands there looking, and it takes every scrap of his heretofore unused self-restraint to keep his hands clenched at his sides, because he knows if he makes any move to drive the moment, to change its course beyond what she wants, what she's prepared to give, she'll be gone, like smoke through his fingers, and he doesn't want her gone. He doesn't know what he wants anymore, but it all requires her.

The smile is back as she gazes at him, holding him with those eyes, which he now realizes are level with his own. Unthinkingly he drops his gaze to the floor, and sure enough, those expensive stilettos are gone and she's walking around in her bare feet. Her bare, perfectly manicured, feet are touching the floor, this floor where people have done all manner of things he'd rather not think about. As though sensing his fascination, she wriggles her toes just little, and even that's somehow sensuous and slow. Dragging his gaze back up her body, he returns the smile this time as she raises her left hand to show the red pumps dangling from two fingers, and they're sharing a private joke.

Then she takes another fractional step forward, her thigh brushing against his, and he's no longer laughing. Holding his breath, he's stares, transfixed as she reaches into her waistband, pulls out a monogrammed business card case, he'd bet was platinum. It doesn't even occur to him to wonder why she'd be carrying it in such an intimate place, because he's watching her flip it open and pull out one elegant card, as though that case holds all the secrets of the universe. After all maybe it does, maybe it's the secret to his universe. Holding it up between to her middle and index finger, so that he catches just a glimpse of embossing and expensive gold leaf, she drops her hand and he can feel her fingers playing at his waistband, the caress of fine paper against his skin as she tucks the card in place.

There are no words, no 'Call Me's or 'Want to get out of here's, she just smiles one last time and then steps away, leaving him to his doorway and the press of her name of against his skin like it might just leave a mark, like when he peals off his clothes and looks into the mirror, she'll be there, bruised against him. Still the message is implicit, and when he walks back out to his seat to find her gone and his tab paid, his first thought isn't to look wistfully out at the traffic.

It might be a fucking stupid choice, calling her, imagining that they could somehow carve something out of their terribly different lives simply because of a common experience, one they never even shared, but hell then it'd be just one more to add to his list of fucking stupid choices. He'd rather regret that choice than not trying at all, because there was a time when he wasn't a coward, and she remembers that.

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So I hope you all enjoyed that. For those that are wondering where the hell ICF is, I promise I'm writing it. In case you don't believe me ask Dagmar (she's seen the first part).

Panache


	2. Trini

Disclaimer: Someone else's sandbox. I just play here because its fun.

Author's Note: Much to my astonishment this fic won a few awards in the 'What A Character' Awards, so partly in celebration and thanks to all who voted for it, and partly because Dagmar threatened me with a 2x4 and I don't ignore threats from Dagmar, I present Trini's side of things. This is, in some ways, darker than Rocky's part. So you've been warned.

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She's not usually like this.

She should tell him that, she thinks. Standing here in nothing but his old, worn AGHS t-shirt, staring at herself in the dirty full-length mirror that pulls her figure slightly out of shape, like a gentler version of those at funhouses, she knows she should tell him that this isn't really her.

But then that's all part of the allure, isn't it?

That's what draws her back here time after time. Why after every late night exit, every afternoon of scrambling out of bed to fix her makeup and catch a cab, every Monday morning of swearing this week will be different, this week she'll reclaim her life, she still finds herself donning a threadbare t-shirt and starring into this mirror, trying to meet the woman who stares back.

She's a different person with him, with the echo of his fingers against her flesh, the smell of him—cheap scotch and wood-dust—clinging to her hair. She likes this Trini more. She's sexier, more mysterious, more . . . alive, than the real Trini Kwan has ever been. She could believe that this Trini once saved the world, something previously relegated to an adolescent dream, an almost semi-delusional fantasy life, which shouldn't be brought up in polite company.

Years have been dedicated to boxing her up, the Trini who took risks, who wore yellow and could walk a tight-rope if necessary, who never would have gotten trapped in this prison of successful safety.

She wears neutrals now, chic blacks and navys cut in expensive, don't-fuck-with-me suits, and although her downtown loft is on the thirty-third floor, it's been years since she's been more than three feet off the ground without a pane of glass between her and the outside world. So that other Trini had to be the delusion, the fantasy, had to be buried, dead and gone. After all, it had been easy to believe, to almost convince herself that she'd never powered robots or fought aliens, when it had been years since she'd talked to anyone who shared her delusions.

So very easy, until a month ago, with the other Trini was already clawing at her coffin, propelling her into that bar, hoping to obliterate the cries . . .

His eyes had been those of a fellow inmate. Perhaps his prison was not the luxurious padded cell variety, but in the end trapped is trapped, and she had recognized the look—the helpless self-loathing of someone who can't quite figure out how they've lived down from their potential so spectacularly. A stranger couldn't intrude on that, couldn't commiserate, but a comrade could. So in one reckless instant, in one flash of recognition, she'd been compelled to dig the other Trini up, to find that anonymous spot where she thought she'd buried her, and bring her back to life. But just like Frankenstein's monster, she'd come back wrong, a little more reckless and a little less shiny.

Trini knows deep inside, in some dark place, that she won't ever be buried again, that this is the bargain she's made, her pound of flesh. But it only bothers her at work or looking out onto the city from her loft, when newly resurrected parts scream for escape, and she steps a little closer to the glass, willing it away. Here, all that concern melts into nothingness, evaporated by the heat of him.

He views her as some kind of gift, first prize in life's capricious lottery, but the joke's on him, because she has nothing left to give. All she knows how to do anymore is take.

And take she does. He fills some need in her. With his one room apartment in the wrong part of the city, his all too clichéd motorcycle, and completely unexpected collection of handmade quilts from his abuela, he's sex and drugs, good jazz and martinis, homemade apple pie and warm milk. He keys her up, makes her blood race, and her mind go a little blank with excitement in a way that's only ever been matched by . . .

_Morphing._

She blinks. It's been a damn long time since she's permitted herself to think that word, that other Trini's word.

Unconsciously, her eyes slide over to meet his in the mirror, to watch him watching her with raw, hungry appreciation. Does he know he's getting a fraud, a patchwork replica of someone who no longer exists? Does it bother him to be fucking a woman who is in essence a walking corpse, long dead inside, or is that perhaps his kink?

It occurs to her to ask, just come flat out with it. Are you fucking me or sleeping with her? Or is it having both that really does it? But he'd probably answer her, and she's not sure she wants to know, because down at her very core she thinks the answer is 'neither,' he just likes women and no one turns down a free one.

So in the end she doesn't say anything; doesn't say anything because she can't run the risk of the truth. She needs this to be about something more than sex for him, not love, not even affection, but something deeper, harder to fill. She needs him to need this just as much as she does. The thought almost makes her laugh, the memory of her husband's last desperate plea flitting across her mind —_'Why can't you ever let yourself need anything from anyone?'_ Oh, if he could only see her now.

In a kind of cosmic 'up-yours' to a man she's screwed over too many times already, she raises her arms in a lazy stretch that she knows makes the t-shirt rise up just enough, and savors the tingle that runs down her spine and along her legs as Rocky's gaze turns hot and demanding. Thinking she may just be a woman to him, but she's going to make damn sure she's the woman to whom he compares every future conquest, she pulls off the t-shirt, and tosses it at him before sauntering over to the bathroom, where she's left her over night bag, and, in it, the best damn single-malt a non-scotch girl could put her hands on.

She's brought glasses, too, nice crystal tumblers, but after a moments consideration leaves them in their box. This is about shattering expectations, not meeting them.

When she stands silhouetted in the doorway, the bottle dangling from her raised left hand, his quick intake of breath tells her the tableaux is good one. But then, how could it not be?—scotch and skin—like a photo spread for some high class gentleman's magazine.

And in the next moment it's turned cheap and tawdry, because the instant she takes a swig straight from the bottle, he's off the bed, crushing his lips to hers, pressing her back against the doorframe with a ferocity that's sure to bruise. For a second, as his tongue plunders her mouth, seeking out every corner, she thinks it might be more about the alcohol than her. But the bottle slips from her fingers when he pins her wrists above her head, and at the thunk of heavy glass, the slosh of liquid, he doesn't miss a beat, doesn't pause for a moment to mourn the loss.

Maybe being more important than good alcohol isn't exactly an achievement, but at the moment she feels like she's won a damn gold medal.

Three cheers for Trini, hip hip hooray.

It doesn't even occur to her to worry about which Trini he's cheering for.

By the time she's concerned about anything again, darkness has fallen, and a bleary-eyed glance at the clock tells her its two-fourteen in the morning.

"Hey."

Turning a little, she can see him looking down at her, face lit by the pink neon of the "Live Girls!" sign across the street.

Her only response is a contented purr as she wriggles a little closer, planting a kiss on a small scar just above his right pectoral that she likes to think was earned in battle, but is far more likely surgical.

They know so little about each other. She knows he was a Red, like Jason, and then a Blue, like Billy, but she doesn't know why. She's searched for signs, little things that would remind her of the other men, thought at first that perhaps that's what did it for her—she'd been so entangled with them, always on the precipice of something with one or the other, but never able to choose, and here she could have both in a single package. Yet, she's slowly come to the realization that they aren't there, that whatever Rocky might be, he is more than a simple amalgam.

Was he ever wounded in battle? She's seen the small bottle of pills in his almost empty medicine cabinet—right next to the box of condoms and slightly rusted can of shaving cream—fingered the prescription date and counted back the years, but she's never asked the question.

He's never been to her downtown loft and doesn't know her work number. If you asked him her favorite color, he'd only be able to tell you 'Anything but yellow.' She knows he goes to mass on Sunday, but she couldn't tell you whether he really believes. She can't say whether he's ever loved anyone, only that he doesn't love her.

He knows ostensibly why she left, but she can't put her finger on his reason. He knows that, like him, she hasn't spoken to any of the others in over five years, but they've never talked about why.

They don't really talk about anything. Certainly, there are other men who it would be said knew more about her. Hell, she's had more informative conversations with Damien, the night janitor at work. But in the end it doesn't matter because he knows this one thing, holds this one secret in his heart.

And it's that thing that defines her, more than all the other outward trappings of her life. She's reveled in it, run from it, nearly broken at its loss, and in the end reforged herself around the emptiness. It's the reason she couldn't cry at her grandmother's funeral, and she hasn't had a relationship longer than the length of a business conference since her marriage imploded. It's even why she's here with work-roughened hands tracing her curves, bringing her slowly awake, and quickening her blood in a way she seems to need a little more with each passing day.

It's the reason she doesn't protest when he flips her on her stomach and begins to trace patterns on her back with the remnants of the scotch that, she's amused to note, he's retrieved from the floor. It's the reason the sex is rough, and she doesn't care that he can't tell her her daughter's name because he doesn't know she has one.

The fact that she once wore yellow seems to be the reason for everything in her life, and frankly she's getting damn tired of it.

But she doesn't know how to leave it behind.

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There you go. Hope you enjoyed, or at least felt something.

Panache (who's going back to work on ICF she swears)


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